Thursday letters : Send new provincial police to fight rural crime

edmontonjournal.com · Feb 26, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Or sign-in if you have an account.Alberta sheriffs were deployed in downtown Edmonton to help deter and respond to crime and social disorder. Twelve sheriffs will team up the Edmonton Police Service in a 15-week pilot partnership that began in late February, 2023. Photo by Larry Wong /PostmediaRural crime is out of control in Alberta and the RCMP in rural areas are outnumbered. They desperately need help.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles by David Staples, Keith Gerein and others, Oilers news from Cult of Hockey, Ask EJ Anything features, the Noon News Roundup and Under the Dome newsletters.Unlimited online access to Edmonton Journal and 15 news sites with one account.Edmonton Journal ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles by David Staples, Keith Gerein and others, Oilers news from Cult of Hockey, Ask EJ Anything features, the Noon News Roundup and Under the Dome newsletters.Unlimited online access to Edmonton Journal and 15 news sites with one account.Edmonton Journal ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorThrough the past year, our nearby rural neighbours and ourselves have been the victims of more than a dozen criminal incursions including break-ins, thefts, home invasions, property damage and assaults carried out by armed perpetrators. RCMP are responsive and sympathetic but they are simply spread too thin to be effective. They are also frustrated by the “catch-and-release” process in place once the perpetrators are apprehended.What is urgently needed are more police boots on the ground and more police tires on the roads in rural Alberta. Whether this increased police presence is RCMP or Alberta provincial police is of no import. It simply needs to be put in place as soon as possible.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Headline News will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againJust as important is adequate coverage by Crown prosecutors who are willing to go the extra mile to incarcerate the apprehended well-known repeat perpetrators rather than turn them back loose into the community.I encourage the UCP and Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis to fast-track the proposal for a full-fledged Alberta police force to help deal with the ongoing rural crime wave.Mitch Lavoie, Lac SanteThe Feb. 21 edition of the Journal included a letter to the editor which begs a response. In the wake of Matt Jeneroux’s floor-crossing, and the resulting feeling amongst the conservative community of betrayal, Jason Cook suggests that this is hypocrisy.Jason states that there was “not a peep of outrage” from conservatives after the floor-crossing of the Wildrose MLAs in 2014. Then, he admits that “the PCs later paid the price at the ballot box.” Who on earth does he think moved their votes from the PCs if not conservatives? Some 235,516 votes from the combined total of the PC and Wildrose results of the 2012 election moved elsewhere (or stayed home) for the 2015 election.I am a conservative and I was disgusted by the Wildrose floor-crossing. Evidently, many other conservatives were as well. So, no hypocrisy. Any and all floor-crossing is immoral and an affront to the constituents.Dave Glen, EdmontonOur premier states she doesn’t know how much money any policy changes regarding immigrant government service usage will save. I’m all for a focus on economic migrants targeted to our needs, but I would think that is something to be engineered through legislation mimicking best practices and in concert with the federal government, which has to be involved.So why the performance of a referendum? Why the singling out of newcomers? It reeks of race-baiting. Many pundits and journalists call it an attempt to drain off some support from the Alberta separatist movement. One inference would seem to be our government thinks the separatist movement is in-part racist. Reading through some of Steven Sandor’s reporting on them (Jan. 15, 16, 28, 29), one may come to the conclusion this is so.Rather than refuting the delusional fever dream of the separatists and standing up for Canada like other prominent Alberta conservatives such as Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper, our premier stoops to a divisive and craven posture. What does this say about our UCP government?Earl McNeil, EdmontonAs a physician and a taxpayer, I am appalled by the fact that terminally ill Albertans requesting medical assistance in dying (MAID) in our city can be denied care simply because they end up being admitted to a faith-based hospital.Patients rarely have any say about what hospital they are taken to in an emergency situation. By law, all terminally ill Canadians meeting certain criteria should be eligible for MAID in their final days. I cannot imagine how traumatic it would be for the patient (and their loved ones) to be told that they cannot access MAID because they are at the wrong hospital and instead will need to be shipped across the city in an ambulance to a different institution.If all of the Catholics in Alberta want to pool their funds together and build a Catholic-only hospital, they should do that and then be allowed to pick and choose which federal laws they would like to follow. In the meantime, all of the hospitals that are currently funded through our taxpayer dollars should be required to offer MAID to eligible patients.Dan Schiller, EdmontonThe recent story on White Coat, Black Art (CBC) of an Edmonton man and his family’s efforts to access medical assistance in dying (MAID) at the Grey Nuns Hospital was very disturbing. It is a publicly funded Catholic hospital and yet they will not allow MAID to be delivered there, claiming religious grounds. Since when does an institution have the same rights as a person?It was a breach of the gentleman’s constitutional right to die in peace with the assistance of MAID. Shame on Covenant Health.M. Elaine Roberts, EdmontonThank you Canada for making MAID available for people who are suffering. Imagine watching your baby suffocate to death or your mother die of dehydration. Would you not want to do everything possible to minimize their pain?There is nothing casual or flippant about how MAID is given; it is only administered to people for whom all hope is lost. If you don’t want MAID, don’t have it. Please don’t try to impose your religious convictions on the rest of us.Kathleen Harper, EdmontonMost temporary foreign workers fill low-paying jobs that many Albertans don’t want, while others provide desperately needed skills in health care. They work hard, pay taxes and consume no more social and health services than any other group in the province. Foreign students pay three to four times the tuition fees of domestic students.Recently, the number of temporary residents has dropped due to changes implemented by the federal government. Dodging these realities, Premier Danielle Smith has decided to scapegoat these people to deflect from he